The therapeutic application of electrical current enjoys widespread use in dentistry, involving the procedures of vitalometry, electroanalgesia, and desensitization. The procedures are generally considered harmless, but our data and calculations indicate a high probability of damage and destruction in many typical situations. The present work is directed to an identification of electrical waveforms suitable for optimal therapeutic effects with minimal contingencies. The primary objective of these experiments is to characterize the acute and chronic effects of simulated electrotherapeutic stimulation in the experimental animal, including several untested, more desirable waveforms. Three independent categories of data will be collected to characterize, respectively, pulpal nervous excitability (electrophysiology), tissue morphological alterations (histopathology), and alterations in key cellular metabolites directly related to nervous excitability and general metabolic integrity (biochemical energy-charge characterizations of pulpal ATP systems). The neurophysiological studies will involve standard single-unit electrophysiological recording techniques in the Gasserian ganglion both during simulated electrotherapeutic stimulation and following acute post-stimulus intervals of several hours. The histopathological and biochemical characterizations are to be conducted on material sampled after various chronic post-stimulus intervals of particular clinical interest, accompanied of necessity by a less direct measure of excitability, the thresholds for the jaw-opening reflex.